TO GET IT (= UNDERSTAND)

Good morning / afternoon / evening everyone, depending on when you are reading this lesson. Welcome back to the Daily Vitamin.

Today we are continuing with the get theme. This time we will look at a very common informal use of get that means to understand someone or something. Consider the following examples.

Example 1: Everyone laughed at the joke, but Olga didn't seem to get it.

In other words, Olga didn't understand the joke, so she didn't laugh.

Example 2: Speaker 1 enters the room where Speaker 2 is watching a film.
Speaker 1: I don't get it. What's happening?
Speaker 2: She has decided to stay with her ex-husband.
Speaker 1: Oh...I get it now.

⇒ In order to get some writing practice, I encourage you to write your own short dialogue with this use of GET. You can post your dialogue to one of our social media sites (Facebook or Bluesky) and we will give you feedback about your writing as soon as we can. And if you have any questions about this very common use of get, you can also post your questions on one of our social media sites.

Enjoy the rest of your day!